Editor’s Note: The report and images below were provided by an SGA-supported pastor who is ministering in Ukraine.
SGA-supported pastors including Vladimir continue to faithfully love and minister to those gripped with loss and heartbreak in Ukraine. But these servants, too, feel the effects of war.
Please lift up the pastors, the churches, and the hurting people they serve as you read from Vladimir’s account of real-life stories and his own very personal recollections . . .
It looked like a screensaver from a computer game.
Deserted streets. Houses destroyed by shelling. Hungry children. Graves nearby playgrounds. “My apartment is over there,” a man points to a black charred building, or what’s left of it, which lives only in his memories now.
“I would like to find and bury my son’s bones,” a woman pronounces in a monotone, with no emotions.
“My 17-year-old daughter ran to fetch some water, and on her way back she got caught in the crossfire. Four bullets went right through her. I saw her falling to her knees and her eyes closing forever. I also saw how they tried to pull my youngest five-year-old out from under the rubble.”
The pain that is indescribable by words, the pain that settles inside and rises outward with a soundless cry, piercing through your soul… It is circling overhead like a black, gloomy bird that does want to fly away.
You are hugging a person. Their shoulders are shaking. They cry, sob, plunging deeply into their grief.
We all need time to move on with our lives.
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In a time of great uncertainty, God is bringing help, healing, and hope to the people of Ukraine through SGA-supported pastors, churches, a seminary, and SGA-sponsored Compassion Ministry. Be a part of God’s incredible work with your generosity and prayer support.
Your gift of compassion helps struggling people with emergency aid that generally includes Scripture materials, food, medicine, warm clothing, and shoes.